Movies of the Week
Paris, je t'aime, Close to Home, 2:37
See it or skip it? This week's new movie releases By Paul Matthews
Paris, je t’aime
This uneven collection of cinematic cantos is an intriguing, if not wholly successful, hymn to modern love and the romance of Paris. In an attempt to capture the city’s rich diversity, Paris, je t’aime’s producers corralled a mouth-watering roster of A-list directors to make shorts about the city’s 20 arrondissements (two were left out of the finished film). There are a number of weak links in the collection (in particular, Nobuihiro Suwa’s “Places des Victoires” and Tom Tykwer’s “Faubourg Saint-Denis”), and the two-hour running time is a bit much, but with no piece lasting more than five minutes, salvation from the banal and misguided is always around the corner. (The film resembles Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, whose similar format and lopsidedness are better suited to DVD watching.) Scare-meister Wes Craven summons a surprising, fresh take on the ghost story in his gore-free “Pere Lachaise” (“XXe Arrondissement”), where bickering lovers (Rufus Sewell and Emily Mortimer) are confronted by the spectre of Oscar Wilde beside his famous gravesite. Meanwhile, Gérard Depardieu and Frédéric Auburtin tip their hat to American great John Cassavetes in “Quartier Latin,” written and performed by the late filmmaker’s wife, Gena Rowlands. The brightest lights of the bunch come from Joel and Ethan Coen and Alexander Payne (Sideways). In the Coen brothers’ hilarious “Tuillerie,” a schleppy American tourist (Steve Buscemi) waits for the Metro and foolishly ignores his guidebook’s advice about making eye contact with strangers. In Payne’s “14e Arrondissement,” the collection’s finale, a Denver letter carrier (Margo Martindale) chronicles (in her slowly improving French) a solo trip to Paris, concluding on a note that reminds us why the city remains such a potent signifier and magnetic force. WAIT FOR THE DVD
Paris je t’aime is now playing at the Cumberland (159 Cumberland Ave.).
